


Like these autumn leaves, I don't have nothing to hold

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction
Genre: Autumn AU, Cute, F/M, Fluff, Harry Runs, at least i hope it is, at least not an autumn where harry styles falls in love with me, because autumn doesn't exist in our current universe, so that's hot because he's sweaty and athletic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 13:33:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1268257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>trigger warning: mentions of neon trainers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like these autumn leaves, I don't have nothing to hold

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from 'Autumn' by Paolo Nutini. What a guy. Enjoy!

It’s the sort of thing that could happen every day without anything ever actually happening. She just sits on that bench that she has quietly claimed as hers and reads her book and desperately tries not to get distracted by the boy that runs around the park with his dumb, ugly trainers and his dumb beanie that he sometimes takes off to show everyone how dumb his hair looks and his dumb running clothes. She definitely doesn’t let him distract her. At all.

 At least not until one day, when he’s apparently finished his daily run and he sits down on the same bench as her like he hasn’t noticed that this is her bench and if he has, he doesn’t care. He just sits there while she tries not to feel too protective over a bench because it isn’t even that special of a bench, after all.

To be fair with him, he does attempt to start conversation with her, but she only ever gives him short answers, and he eventually stops trying; he just sits there and stares at people who are spending their afternoon at this tiny park in the middle of London and, well, if that bothers her a little bit then no one really needs to know. Because she doesn’t want his attention but she sort of really does at the same time, and to be honest it’s just nice when someone (a boy) cares about her enough to ask how her day was, even if he’s a stranger (a very cute stranger) and she just wants to read peacefully. So she’s conflicted, because it bothers her when he asks questions but it bothers her even more when he doesn’t.

'It's rather warm today, it doesn't feel like it's October, does it?' Twelve words and a whole load of courage and maybe (just maybe) fifteen minutes of practising a smile in front of a mirror. She feels like the most stupid person on the planet as soon as the words leave her mouth (because really, what kind of person tries to start a conversation by bringing up the weather, god, this is probably be the reason she's not a people person). He seems a bit startled by her words at first, right before saying 'No, it really doesn't.' and breaking into a smile that makes her think that maybe that wasn't as bad as she thought. Maybe he wouldn't actually call an ambulance and have her sent to a mental hospital because she's randomly talking about how uncommonly warm it is today of all things. 

A few days go by, and apparently the boy feels comfortable enough sitting on her (their?) bench now, as he has changed his usual ‘how was your day?’ to questions such as 'do you like my new neon trainers?’, which, not really, she doesn't. It’s still not much of a conversation, but it does brighten up her afternoons just a little bit.

It’s mid October now, and the park is suddenly so autumnal it makes her want to live off hot chocolate and marshmallows and lay down where all those crunchy leaves are piled up. She’s sort of given up her reading for today, since every thing around her screams autumn and scarves and warm clothes and hot drinks and nice boys who still go out for a run every single day even though it’s way too cold to wear those shorts and sleeveless T-shirts (she isn’t complaining, though).

Autumn always makes her happy. Happy enough to forget about checking the weather forecast before leaving her flat and to also forget taking an umbrella just in case (her happiness sort of dies down a bit when it starts pouring down and she realises her jumper doesn’t have a hood). The rain stops just as suddenly as it had started and she looks up to find him standing there, holding an umbrella over the both of them. ‘It’s a Halloween miracle!’ he says excitedly, and honestly, boys like him shouldn’t even be allowed to exist.

He doesn’t even seem real, is the thing, so she isn’t even that surprised when he asks if she wants a lift home. She’s one of those girls though, the type of girl who’s seen Taken enough times to know that she should kindly decline offers from strangers, and so she does. His facial expression is somewhere between confused and hurt when he replies ‘We’ve been sharing a bench for at least half an hour every day for the last month, we can hardly be considered strangers.’ She quickly goes over her options, which aren’t many besides walking for thirty minutes in the rain (not a very appealing thought), so she just walks along with him until they get to a car park nearby, and that’s when realisation dawns on her.

'Doesn't driving to the park defy the point of exercising? You already run like, five miles everyday, you might as well just walk all the way here?' She might be coming off as rude, but she's too curious not to ask. He doesn't seem offended at all. 'I'm tired after running five miles and running any less wouldn't impress the girls at the park.' She replies with a 'trust me, they're not very impressed either way' that makes both of them smile for some reason (the reason being they both know she's lying).

After a ten minute awkward car ride he stops her by gently grabbing her wrist just as she’s getting out of the car and looks a bit bashful before asking: ‘Same time, same place tomorrow?’ Which, if you ask her, it’s a bit of a pointless thing to say, and instead of replying she just thanks him for the lift and smiles as if she was actually playing hard to get.

Things don’t really change that much after that, unless you consider him buying new nikes and throwing away his neon trainers as a major change. That is, until he shows up not wearing his usual running outfit (nothing lasts forever and biceps on show are no exception). Instead, he’s wearing a green jumper and skinny jeans and brown boots that make her think of Charles Dickens and Oliver Twist and homeless people.

It’s safe to say that he looks great, and he sits there and starts telling her about how he can’t run today because he pulled a muscle on his bum yesterday because he fell out of bed, and she just laughs, not so much because the story is funny (it isn’t), but because he’s taking a whole five minutes to tell a story that a normal person could summarise in about fifty seven seconds, and he’s stupidly endearing while doing it.

He then goes on about how he wants to drop out of his law and business course and study photography instead, because that’s what he really sees himself doing. 9 am lectures and essay deadlines stress him out enough to feel the need to go for a run everyday to clear his mind. He seems hopeful as he asks her if maybe she’d like to go running with him sometime, and she just has to laugh until she can almost already feel abs forming from how hard she’s laughing, because why would anyone ever consider her the running type? He seems to realise that wasn’t the smartest suggestion of all time, and brushes it off with ‘What about a Starbucks date?’

She’s a bit stunned at first, and has to stop herself from rolling her eyes, which makes her unable to stop the words from coming out of her mouth (she’s not great at multitasking when around boys):  
'How much more of a cliché can you be? I mean, you want to be a photography student and you're healthy and you're tall and nice and you've just asked me out on a coffee date to an overrated and overpriced coffee shop and you're cute and-'

'You think I'm cute?'

'What?'

'You just said I'm cute'

'Did I?'

'Yeah'

'No, I didn't'

'Pretty sure you did'

Oh. And all of a sudden he’s standing right in front of her, and his face is very, very close, and she’s panicking a little bit because he’s leaning in and staring right into her eyes, and the whole world has just stopped, and it isn’t even windy anymore and why is everything so quiet all of a sudden? And, oh God, he’s definitely leaning in now, and why is she even thinking about anything in the first place? She mentally scolds herself and decides to give in to the kiss, because his lips are really soft and warm and full and she can feel his hands holding her waist and after a while they both pull back, because she probably forgot to breathe at some point and it doesn’t feel like there’s any oxygen left in her brain. Can you suffocate someone to death just by kissing them?

She stops worrying, though, because he’s still right in front of her, smiling like his favourite football team just won the world cup, and then he says really quietly, as if the park wasn’t empty and anyone could be listening to their conversation:  
'S'all good though, because I think you're adorable. And clichés are clichés for a reason, after all, so please be clichéd enough to go on a date with me. My name's Harry, by the way.'

**Author's Note:**

> if you didn't completely hate this then please please please leave a comment or something, let me know you're there! :)


End file.
